Sad but true. I'm as guilty as anyone in not spotting a rat.

You see, I've been fiddling with photography since I was a kid. My first job was working in a photo lab in then-West Germany for a former Nazi soldier who had taken combat photos on the Russian front during World War II.

And he was a tough boss. If I missed even a smattering of chemicals on the darkroom floor as I mopped up at the end of the night, I couldn't just dab up the spot, the entire floor had to be swabbed again. No excuses. It taught me to pay attention to detail.

So I have no alibi for not trusting my gut feeling in the case of Qiu Yan, who recently took third place in the World Press Photo contest in Amsterdam. Qiu is a photographer for the Wuhan Evening News in Central China's Hubei Province who now stands accused of staging his winning photo, "Wedding During SARS". He's in court over the matter.

But first things first. With my background of shooting photos for newspapers, magazines and wire services, my friends at the China Daily - who for years have helped photographers across China prepare their WPP entries and covered the entry fees - asked me to help choose this past year's candidates' photos.

As my talented editing colleagues were culling down hundreds and hundreds of photographs, one set was Qiu's. This marriage shot showed a young couple apparently on their way to their wedding, with the groom and bride dressed in Western matrimonial regalia. The winning element? Both wore protective SARS masks. A little girl trailed behind holding the bride's train as the couple crossed a busy street.

It was a perfect shot. At the time, I commented on how the photographer had to have been so lucky, wandering by just at that time. It was just fabulous good fortune, almost too good to be true.

As it turns out, it apparently was too good to be true.

Qiu now stands accused of faking the whole thing. It seems the apparent "groom" in the photo, Chen Ying, is single. He claims the fame that came his way after the photo won wide acclaim ruined his relationship with his real girlfriend. And she was not the "bride" in the photo. She was in fact just a photo shop employee Qiu had picked out as a "model" for the shot.

Chen is suing Qiu and the Wuhan Evening News for 150,000 yuan, alleging they have harmed his reputation. Apparently Chen has forgotten he volunteered to play the part of the groom.

The scandal broke last month when Chen called Qiu's newspaper and spilled the beans, saying that Qiu came to the Sese Wedding Dress Photo Shop to find some models to help him with his photography. Qiu picked Chen and a girl to play the part of a bride and groom shot.

In court the other day, Qiu recounted what happened. "I've been in Wuhan for two years, and I am a model for Sese Photo Shop. You can tell from the picture that it was taken just outside our shop. The little girl who was selling the wedding dress was also picked from our photo shop," Chen said, according to a Beijing Today newspaper account.

Chen then read the caption that went with the photo: "On May 5, 2003 a couple cross Yangzi road to have their wedding photo taken. Love and marriage continue during the SARS outbreak."

It turns out the girl is just 17, and marriage in China is not allowed before the age of 20.

Qiu reportedly has been desperately trying to win a WPP award for years. He's been close on four previous occasions.

But he's a big winner now, garnering the China News Prize award and Ten Excellent Youth Photographers prize. Still, famous as he is now, he's keeping a low profile lately, avoiding the courthouse and allowing a lawyer for his paper to deny the photo was staged.

Queried whether Qiu checked up on the credibility of the newlyweds, the answer from the attorney was milquetoast: "Qiu did ask Chen and Liao whether they were lovers, but considering it was the SARS time, he did not have much conversation with them."

And some witnesses were presented to show the couple was in love, something both Chen and the girl deny.

Qiu also told a Shanghai newspaper that Chen and his family found him after he won the WPP prize and asked for 100,000 yuan as a reward, but Qiu refused. Chen said that his father asked for compensation because Chen lost his girlfriend, and Qiu offered a payoff of 20,000 yuan. The family refused the offer.

Allow me a few observations.

Any photographer worth his journalistic salt does not take a photo and publish it without confirming the identities of the people in the photo. It is an egregious insult to his professionalism and to that of his newspaper. Is Qiu really such an amateur? I doubt it.

Why did he offer a payoff if he had done nothing wrong?

The pressure to succeed professionally, to win awards, to upstage one's peers, is enormous. People will stoop to lengths beyond human understanding. The Los Angeles Times photographer in Iraq who recently spliced two images together to make a wartime shot more dramatic. He was immediately fired. As were the New York Times and USA Today premier reporters who made up people, places and stories for years, as gullible editors published their work, not believing what was too good to be true wasn't true.

As Li Shuanglong, dean of the Department of Journalism and Communication at Fudan University said, whatever the situation, journalists and photographers should be responsible for the truth. They should shoot what is there, and never alter reality.

"Photographers should have their ethics. Not intervening in the affair a photographer is shooting is a top rule," Li said.

And when judging photos, one should trust his gut feeling. I should have helped my colleagues who saw Qiu's entries. And I should have never argued for putting that shot on China Daily's 2004 calendar. But I wanted to believe in the perfection of that lovely photo.

I'm sorry.

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